Almost one in every four Japanese men sits down on the toilet to urinate, according to a survey by Toto Corp., the country's biggest manufacturer of toilets.
Toto's poll of 2,312 adult men from across Japan discovered that 23.7 percent sat down while having a pee.
Nearly half of those who sat instead of stood said they did so because it made cleaning cisterns simpler, while almost as many said it simply felt more comfortable.
Three years ago, Toto conducted a similar poll amongst housewives, asking them the toiletry habits of the men in their homes, finding that about only one in seven sat while urinating.
Sitters are becoming increasingly common, like the 24-year-old company employee from Kawasaki who joined their ranks upon marrying six months ago.
"It's my job to clean the toilet and I used to find my aim wasn't too good," the man, who declined to be named, told the Mainichi. "Once I'd gotten used to sitting, I learned to relax."
Toilet researcher Junichi Hirata blames the spread of Western-style toilets on the increasing prevalence for Japanese men to sit on the toilet even while only urinating.
Hirata says that the now defunct Public Housing Urban Corp., the organization responsible for building much of the country's taxpayer-subsidized accommodation, made a formal decision to sacrifice space allocated to toilets in favor of more expansive living rooms and bedrooms. Japanese-style squat toilets are also more difficult to put in place, making the Western potty a preferable choice.
After becoming the norm in public housing in the 1960s, Western-style toilets soon became the standard in all types of housing.
Urinal sales are plummeting. Government figures show that 339,000 urinals sold last year, 60,000 fewer than had moved four years earlier.
"Nearly 90 percent of urinals sold are for public facilities," Mamoru Iijima, a spokesman for the Japan Hygiene Equipment Manufacturers said.
Sitters have also influenced changes in men's underwear. Where it was once normal to have men's briefs with an opening in the front to provide easy access at times of urination, now less than half the 20 types of men's undies available from catalog clothing seller Cecile Co. offer such access.
"With so many guys in their teens or 20s sitting down every time they use the toilet, the demand for briefs with openings just isn't there anymore," a company spokesman said.
Not everybody is happy with the trend.
"Men are structurally designed to piss standing up," Chiba Institute of Technology Associate Prof. Yoshiyuki Ueno, who has studied toilets for more than three decades, said. "I wouldn't recommend anybody sitting down on a Western-style toilet to urinate. I advocate bringing back household urinals and solving problems regarding cleanliness by getting guys to be responsible for cleaning up." (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Oct. 4, 2004)
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